With the current shift of the market turning to online transactions, Alibaba capitalized on a huge opportunity, with their sales for the Single’s day “exceeding predictions at $9.3 billion”(Alibaba). China’s online retail giant has had great success on the e-commerce market by supplying the consumers a new way to receive their products at a click of a button.
80% of online transactions in China
In any case, this outlines the importance of the role of market research before you create a product. Alibaba is one of the biggest online commerce companies in which they successfully created a marketplace for consumers and business owners. They identified the problem of the lack of a centralized online market place and here they are now, ruling with “80% of all online sales in the world’s second biggest economy”(Alibaba). I believe that this successful increase in revenue was generated by the successful marketers of the company.
A successful e-commerce company.
However, that does not mean these marketers will always make the right speculations. Currently, they are pushing to become more international and expand their company to overseas. This could be a great idea, but an entry to a new market always comes with risks and uncertainty. There are already websites such as Amazon and ebay, which are popular among the western civilization. The existence of the company has already created competition, and moving the general company forward to overseas will create even more. Alibaba can make this bold move, but I sure hope that they have done their market research beforehand, or they could lose money just as fast as it came in for them.
Sources
“Alibaba Singles’ Day Sales Pass $9bn.” BBC News. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29999289>.
Bloomberg. “How Alibaba Sold Nearly $7 Billion in Merchandise in 14 Hours | Toronto Star.” Thestar.com. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. <http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/11/11/how_alibaba_sold_nearly_7_billion_in_merchandise_in_14_hours.html>.
Pictures/Videos
http://www.stockwatchweekly.com/daily-news/alibaba-ipo-invest-invest-question/
http://immpolicy.com/2014/09/02/eb-5-quota-reached-for-china/